Star Citizen nears 8 years, gamings "Heavens Gate"

No friends, not referring to the weird space cult and suggest we all do ourselves in on mass - although this probably would beneficial to society in the long run.

Rather, the game, and it's lead is very much reminiscent of a Michael Cimino, an ego maniac director who pissed everyone's money away for his personal masterpiece, that was an monumental disaster.

Is this hyperbole? What should we expect of Star Citizen upon release?

A disaster?

Masterpiece?

Merely, ok game?

Here's some shit never read - on top of this

As Star Citizen turns eight years old, the single-player campaign still sounds a long way off

Star Citizen's single-player campaign, Squadron 42 is still in development, Cloud Imperium Games has insisted, but don't hold your breath on it coming out any time soon.

"We still have a ways to go before we are in beta, but everyone on Squadron 42 is working very hard to deliver something great," CIG boss Chris Roberts said in an AMA on the Roberts Space Industries website to coincide with Star Citizen's eight birthday (Star Citizen was unveiled on 10th October 2012).

The AMA was meant to celebrate Star Citizen's milestone, but among posts about upcoming features for the main game were questions from clearly disgruntled fans who complained about the radio silence around Squadron 42, which is currently six years behind its original delivery target.

Squadron 42 is meant to be a cinematic, star-studded story-based single-player adventure akin to the Wing Commander games Roberts made his name with in the '90s. CIG has released flashy trailers for the game, starring virtual recreations of Hollywood actors such as Mark Hamill, Gillian Anderson, Gary Oldman and Mark Strong, but it has yet to become playable for backers in any form.

Squadron 42 was originally announced for release in 2014 during the Star Citizen Kickstarter campaign, but was delayed multiple times. In mid-2019 CIG said a beta release was planned before the end of Q2 2020, then an estimated Q3 2020 on a now abandoned roadmap. But that date has passed and there has been no meaningful communication from the studio on the status of Squadron 42's release.

"As it stands the community has completely divided opinions on the expected release date of SQ42 with opinions varying from that SQ42 is in beta currently to it being 5+ years away," said a user called Bobblenator in an AMA question.

"You stated in the pledge (https://robertsspaceindustries.com/the-pledge): 'We, the Developer, intend to treat you with the same respect we would give a publisher. You will receive regular updates about the progress of the game.'

"Given the massive uncertainty on the progress of SQ42 within the community, do you feel as though you have been meeting this objective?"

Roberts stepped in to address this question, announcing the imminent release of a show focused just on Squadron 42 called The Briefing Room. New episodes are planned every three months until the game comes out.

Roberts admitted however that the studio hasn't done a good job of showing progress on Squadron 42.

"Squadron 42 is a tricky project to communicate on as we really don't want to give the experience and story away which can make updating on certain content or features challenging," he said.

Roberts stressed the pledge Bobblenator referred to in their question related to Star Citizen, as opposed to Squadron 42 (each has its own development roadmap), and insisted "we also communicate way more than any other developer or publisher than I am aware of in terms of work and progress".

He then went on to suggest different people want different types of communication, ranging from deep dives to release date announcements.

"It's impossible to please all the people all the time, and with a project as complicated as Star Citizen or even Squadron 42 it's impossible to have iron clad dates due to the huge amount of ongoing R&D.

"So yes, I do feel like we have been meeting 'The Pledge'."

Roberts, in a separate post, then addressed concern about the status of Squadron 42 specifically. And unfortunately it sounds like fans will have to wait a while longer.

"You're not really asking about what is being worked on Squadron 42, you really just want to know when it will be done," Roberts said.

"The best answer for your question is Squadron 42 will be done when it is done, and will not be released just to make a date but instead once all the tech and content is finished, polished and it plays great. I am not willing to compromise making a game I believe in with all my heart and soul, and even though everyone (including me) wants Squadron 42 sooner than later, it would be doing a huge disservice to everyone working really hard on the project and all of you that are looking forward to it to deliver something that isn't great.

"The new roadmap will show how we are doing towards that goal and as we get closer to the end it will be more accurate but it will never be a perfect crystal ball of the future as there is always a certain amount of unpredictability in game development, especially when the game is hugely ambitious and has a very high quality bar; Red Dead Redemption 2, Last of Us 2 and now Cyberpunk have all taken a lot longer than originally communicated and those projects didn't even announce a release date until very deep into their production, when most of their tech had been resolved.

"We still have a ways to go before we are in beta, but everyone on Squadron 42 is working very hard to deliver something great."

As you'd expect, Roberts' comments have sparked a vociferous response among the game's community, with some players complaining about the long development time of Squadron 42, and others saying they are happy to wait.

"See the issue I have is that we're not treated with the same respect as a publisher," wrote redditor danivus on the Star Citizen sub.

"A publisher is told how far along things are. A publisher is told when something is taking longer than expected, where challenges have been encountered and content cut.

We're treated like players, only given the good news and shown shiny things in the hopes we'll buy more jpegs."

Danivus' "jpegs" line is in reference to the sale of virtual spaceships you can't actually fly in-game. Star Citizen has raised an astonishing $314m from nearly three million people since launching as a crowdfunded project in 2012, and the money continues to roll in: according to the official website, Star Citizen generated over $3m in September. Drilling down further, $236,775 was made just yesterday, 9th October.

Star Citizen and Chris Roberts have come under fire for years now for failing to release the game, or provide a target release date. Yesterday, the developers launched the Star Citizen - Alpha 3.11: High Impact update, and kicked off a Halloween-themed event as well as an in-game election. Fans will watch the new Squadron 42 show due out today with great interest.

I remember years ago how PC gamers were bragging about this game 😄 They must've swapped 4 or 5 graphics cards by now, waiting for the day it releases. 😁

IB4 the SC apologist turn up lol

I think the narrative here is misguided. Most SC fans have already been playing it for years now. There are over 12,000,000 subscribers. It's just not officially released because it's still not finished but you can play it right now if you want.

Here is a link for you since OP apparently can't find it: https://robertsspaceindustries.com/download

GaaS game. Was when it started. Is now. Will be forever.

Could just play Mario Galaxy.

The development of this game was severely mismanaged for the first 6 years, with splintered development teams developing parts of it without knowning about others, sometimes to have a years worth of effort completely reworked because it didn't mesh with other systems. Then we have Chris Roberts, a man so focused on the details that core mechanics never get finished. Chris Roberts had to get fired from the original Freelancer, just to get a new producer in that knew how to get the already belated game over the finish line. So StarCitizen is actually helmed by a developer whose last game was released in 1993 (!).

StarCitizen is the perfect example why you need a publisher, a publisher that keeps track of development milestones and takes action when these aren't met.

I have been saying it since Day Z... Early access and crowd funded games that are AAA level in terms of scope and graphics will always fail, they barely succeed with billion dollar companies behind them and teams of 100's working on them with best in class developers.

Theirs a reason this game was crowd funded, no developer would hear the pitch of Star Citizen and go for it.

There was good buzz of the recent build. Its still a build by the way, this game probably still alpha.

Wonder how many would've crowdfunded this game if the devs said it'll take 10-15 years to make.

I remember years ago people bragging about Deep Down. At least SC is sitll being developed 😂

Living rent free in your insecure head

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Development_of_Final_Fantasy_XV

10 years of closed development with the backing of a long established company and no innivations worth noting

Compared to starting from nothing and developing the most advanced and innovative systems known

You need it to fail because you think it will justify your poor life choices

The usual discussion of I knew this shit will fail or give them more time game X took longer.

What is the price tag on this game?

I had a friend that dropped hundreds on this game. He now primarily plays physical board and card games.

Infinite service. Buy in now, hope it is finished in 10 years.

Or abandoned, like 99% of GaaS games.

My friend you are still defending a game that does exist anyways and will probably never released. 2020 is now finished. and 2021 is starting.

Just checked, Star written backwards is "Rats".

Chris Roberts would fit in perfectly with the White House administration.

Iv played it, it exists.

What you play is pre alpha version. the base game the SP squadon 42 will never release.

or a good manger.

They want to beat Duke nukem for longest dev hell.

Scam Citizen

Chris Roberts is a professional conman. It's a good gig if you can pull it off, and "crowdfunding" seems to be fertile ground for these kinds of schemes because the huckster is basically saying, "Hey, suckers, give me your money with no strings attached, and no guarantee I'll actually deliver on any of my promises," and then idiots send him money free and clear. It might be unethical, but it's perfectly legal.

This game may or may not be complete. In any case, it's clear that they shouldn't have wasted so much time and money on such a weird project like this.

I remember being very excited about the scope of this game. It had (and still has) the potential of becoming one of the most ambitious and promising games ever created. But after all these years I'm left with just indifference towards it.

Even EA released a space simulator on time, that wasn't scam and actually fairly good. Reshaping how movies would be made in the future.

That's where we are at.

Whether you love them or hate them, there's no denying that EA is very successful as a business. Chris Roberts, on the other hand, is not a successful businessman, but he does appear to be a very successful a scam artist.

If all of SC development had been kept secret until a few months before it releases you'd be no wiser to its development time and wouldn't be saying what you're saying now. We've seen the slow progress that comes naturally when developing video games and with a game the scale and complexity of SC it comes as less a surprise. Usually all of that stuff happens behind closed doors and a game gets shown months before release instead of several years before release like SC/S42 have had to due to their open development.

Personally, I find it hard to believe CIG would hire over seven hundred staff to develop games as openly as SC and in turn SQ42 are, hold yearly events like Citizen-con, hire Hollywood actors etc if they had no interest in releasing a game at the end of it all. "Its never coming out" just because its taking a long time to be developed is a bit narrow minded especially when you can play and witness for yourself the progress that has been made since the first playable alpha version.

Tell me about it. His last game took Forever to come out.

The biggest issue imo is that they have never shown a single minute of gameplay that looks compelling. The FPS stuff looks terrible. Ship combat does not look much better.

So even if they, by some miracle, were able to duck tape this project together in a releasable state, it would still suck.

Scam of the century

Con is right. Ha ha ha!

@PinchySkree: @pelvist: You guys should get out while you can, this thing is going to be the biggest car crash in gaming history lol.

I'm really rooting for this project. Not because I'm all that into space sims, but because there is nothing I love more than watching cynical brats have to eat their words.

I get very little satisfaction in life, because the cynics are usually right:(

Did you know Mr Moneybag....oh i mean Roberts was renting a house until 2018 where he bought a mansion for $4.7 million dollars, doesn't release his or any of his family & friends salaries that are on the board.

He makes it easy to be a cynic.

Ashes of Creation won't fail.

Watching gameplay of SC is painful. It's so far from being finished, but they'll happily show off little inconsequential details to impress people. Why waste development time when so many core elements of your game haven't even been implemented after nearly a decade.

Wood posted this on Discord. Yikes. 🤦‍♂️

In a bold move, Chris Roberts compares Star Citizen to the Apollo program, which managed to put a man on the moon in less time than it has taken him to make a video game

I wonder if most gamers here know what made the film "Heaven's Gate" notorious. What a film to destroy a director's reputation!

@i_p_daily: Chris Roberts went from being a somewhat respectable game designer to becoming a con artist. He stole over $300 million from his idiotic fanbase. The biggest scam in video game history.

Many gamers gave Peter Molyneux a lot of shit for failing to live up to his promises. Molyneux ain't got shit on Chris Roberts in that regard.

I once defended this but yea it's basically playable vaporware. At the very least, it's not worth tracking anymore. In the time it has taken to be still in alpha, we're switching over a generation and it's once amazing graphics are now dated, meanwhile the gameplay has never been that amazing, at least not compared to what the release version is supposed to be. And what, at best the game still has 2, 3, 4 years to launch? Honestly, why does anyone care at this point?

Not going to lie: I am a huge supporter of this game, but when I got the email from them saying "We are celebrating 8 years of Star Citizen yay yay!" I was a little pissed lol. If this were a finished product and had 8 years of success, then let's celebrate.

But right now we've had 8 years of alpha playtesting and, while I Have enjoyed that, celebrating before a game is even finished despite being one the most well-funded ventures in history is a bit....gauche?

I'm not a hater like a lot of people--these are games, if you take them so serious you let it turn you into a shit talking moron, you probably should give up gaming--but Star Citizen just keeps finding new ways to irk me haha.

Ah well, plenty to play while I wait for this game to come out.

Three video cards, thank you very much :P

:D

To be fair, Molyneux gave up. Roberts is still working on it.

And thanks for reminding me about Godus, I was really looking forward to a god game from one of the original god game developers. God damn 22Cans...

Nothing stings quite like the truth.

I'm so glad I know nothing of this game 😄

The difference is that Godus cost $700,000 and Star Citizen cost $300 million. Star Citizen cost 400 times as much as Godus. Yet gamers were shitting on Molyneux over Godus while giving a free pass to Chris Roberts, who stole 400 times more money.

And it's not like gamers weren't already shitting on Molyneux from before. Black & White and Fable were released games, and involved no crowd-funding at all (and I thought Fable was a great game too), yet Molyneux got a lot of hate for not living up to all his promises. Chris Roberts has done far worse than Molyneux has ever done.

It's not stolen yet :P I will be every bit as critical of Roberts if he goes "Guys, we are bankrupt blah blah blah" but as I said earlier, as long as they are working on it I can wait.

And I don't know, I always thought Black and White and Fable were fairly well received. I would love a Black and White 3. Demonic Evil Lion FTW.

I wish the history behind Chris Roberts development hell with his previous games was more well known when Star Citizen first started. If we had known that his ambition was putting Freelancer in development hell people would've been a lot more cautious about funding Star Citizen

This is why I hate working with perfectionists. They refuse to realize the world is flawed, nothing is perfect, nothing ever will be.

Good enough is exactly that: good enough.